11:23:49 AMNow, Kady seems to assume that Doug Finley and other members of the Cons' braintrust would disagree with the prospect of eliminating candidate rebates (and potentially other related funding for federal parties). And on a first glance, it might seem that the Cons wouldn't be interested in giving up a significant source of income for their party.
Dean del Mastro takes over questioning, and starts out by rather selflessly stating that he doesn’t see why candidates need a sixty percent rebate for expenses in the first place — I’d love to have seen Doug Finley’s face at that point...
But as I've noted before, the Cons may well have a strong incentive to do just that. True, they'd certainly lose some resources in absolute terms - but their relative position compared to every other federal party would be strengthened significantly if the other parties lost funding which makes for a far larger part of their current operational budget.
Given that choice, I have to figure the Cons would gladly give up a few party staff positions and ad campaigns in the short term if it'll significantly increase their chances of holding power until something dramatic changes in the fund-raising race.
From that starting point, Del Mastro's statement looks to me to be not so much an off-the-cuff remark as part of the groundwork to slash federal party funding. And that could set the Cons up with both a surefire path to an election this fall (since the line between the Libs and bankruptcy is probably the one which even Dion won't cross in order to delay a trip to the polls), and a way of portraying themselves as anti-Ottawa outsiders even after two and a half years in power.
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